Amazon.co.uk Review
Cheb Mami, leading exponent of Algeria's "rai" music, goes for broke on
Dellali. Paralleling the origins of the Western world's early rock & roll,
punk and hip-hop (as well as the blues and reggae), rai originated in
Algeria's underclass as home-grown recreational art. The personal became
political, and as its popularity (and controversy) grew, the music--marked
by raw, provocative and wilful vocals--became a beautifully uplifting and
rebellious expression, a flag claimed and raised high by Algeria's young.
One of the form's earliest innovators, Cheb Mami fled to Paris where he has
for two decades been a rising star, blending rai with dance, hip-hop, funk
and rock, in a string of ever-more accessible recordings. His international
calling card, however, was backing Sting on "Desert Rose". Sinewy,
sophisticated and genre-expansive, Dellali features Mami's barbed-wire
vocals cutting through multi-layered fields of wild and orchestral violin,
accordion, cello, oud and drums. Sting backs Mami on a track, and late
Nashville sensation Chet Atkins is on guitar on backing vocals. But the
most shimmering and soulful moments come when the London Community Gospel
Choir turn Dellali into a grandiose explosion of nearly perfect sound.
Paige La Grone
fRoots, October 2001
The Paris-based Algerian Mami is a bona-fide star in France and I imagine
he'll have no trouble consolidating that position with Dellali. With
production shared between Nile Rodgers (of Chic fame) and man of the moment
Nitin Sawhney and guests including Sting, Chet Atkins and Ziggy Marley,
this is unashamedly a pop-rai disc, full of big hooks and sharp grooves.
The nine tracks produced by Rodgers are as funky as you'd expect, without
ever losing track of those Maghrebi roots. Sawhney's four contributions
more experimental: "Yahamami" finds Mami's voice sailing gloriously over a
string arrangement, whilst on "Ana Oualache" he is matched, less
successfully with the London Community Gospel Choir. The more traditional
"Tzazae" (complete with accordeon and violin) works a treat as do a goodly
proportion of the Rodgers produced tracks. Especially "Rim Lachoura" (an
exile's lament with a throbbing bassline, more accordeon and a breathy
female chorus) the reggaefied "Madanite" with Ziggy Marley on backing
vocals and the big rai stomper "Mamazareh". Throughout, Mami's high,
passionate voice holds the attention. More consistent than Khaled's last
(there's no embarrassing cover of "Imagine" here), this is as good as
commercial rai gets. Jamie Renton
